Promises From Patent Holders
Some software companies who hold significant patent portfolios have made non-aggression pledges to the free software community. These have varied in scope and have received a variety of responses. IBM, Sun, and Nokia are three examples. These have been described by Richard Stallman as "significant", "not really anything", and "next to nothing", respectively.
Microsoft has pledged not to assert any claims against open source developers which CEO Steve Ballmer called "an important step and significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies." This pledge has been accepted with some skepticism.
Read more about this topic: Software Patents And Free Software
Famous quotes containing the words promises, patent and/or holders:
“It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilised taste.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The doctrine of those who have denied that certainty could be attained at all, has some agreement with my way of proceeding at the first setting out; but they end in being infinitely separated and opposed. For the holders of that doctrine assert simply that nothing can be known; I also assert that not much can be known in nature by the way which is now in use. But then they go on to destroy the authority of the senses and understanding; whereas I proceed to devise helps for the same.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)